The FBI agents who worked on the Hillary Clinton email probe had to sign an NDA to force them not to talk about the investigation. There might be a reason for it:

“FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting,” said one source.

Oh, really?

Current and former agents do not know if the FBI has used the “Case Briefing Acknowledgment” before. These people have expressed confusion over the NDA:

“This is very, very unusual. I’ve never signed one, never circulated one to others,” said one retired FBI chief.

An FBI agent currently on the job admitted, “I have never heard of such a form. Sounds strange.”

Some FBI agents have shown anger towards FBI Director James Comey since he recommended the Department of Justice not bring charges against Clinton even though they found she and staff mishandled classified information on her private email server. But Comey admitted to the House Oversight Committee “that any of his employees who handled emails the way Clinton did could be subject to dismissal or loss of security clearance.”

On Wednesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch dodged questions from Republicans on why she chose not to prosecute Hillary. Instead of answering the simple questions, she told them to reread Comey’s statements. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), chairman of the committee, also said not to at least “pursue charges ‘defies logic and the law,’” especially since she met with former President Bill Clinton in Arizona right before Comey announced his decision:

Goodlatte suggested that and other factors could have been grounds for recusal, but Lynch rebuffed the notion. And she insisted that the discussion with the former president was “social” and did not pertain to the email investigation.

Lynch has nevertheless expressed regret for the meeting and acknowledged that it had “cast a shadow” on the public perception of the Justice Department’s independence.

The agents are not in the same group as Hillary so their assigned narrative would not protect them from the hammer. Hillary was innocent by definition so the agents had to sign NDAs to make sure they understood the rules of engagement. NDAs are usually used between groups that are not legally joined in some manner because trust is not strong enough. I think the NDAs were simply a message (sort of a horses head) that the agents are considered enemies of the leftist insiders.

It would apply to her if we refused to tolerate the corrupt cowards of the GOPe hogging the leadership positions of the party and replaced them with patriots: Lynch would be impeached, Obama would be threatened with impeachment, and suddenly Clinton would be in jail.

Interesting: Comey told the House Oversight Committee that the decision not to recommend an indictment was unanimous among the investigative team. So who were these other agents in the team? And were there *other* agents in the team previously who departed during the investigation and were replaced? Who *selected* the agents in the team? Was there an attempt to maintain political neutrality in the team? (Answer: Ha!) Was there any pressure from above on the agents in the team to turn in a unanimous recommendation? (Answer: Yes, of course) Did any of these agents change their mind during the decision process from Recommend to Not? How often does the FBI actually *make* a recommendation to prosecute/not prosecute to the AG? Isn’t this normally the call of the AG exclusively? If there was no communication between Comey and the Clintons, how did all of them use almost exactly the same phrasing when describing the results of the investigation?

1. I seem to remember that the CIA agents returning from Benghazi were forced by Clinton to sign NDA’s. Some of them signed in the hospital.

2. Comey mentioned thousands of emails that had not been previously released, some of which had been destroyed illegally and reproduced forensically. When will those be made public in the same way the others were. I’m very curious about the nature of those emails in particular.

“De Santis: “How would you not then not know that that was something that was inappropriate to do?”

Comey: “Well, I want to take one of your assumptions about sophistication. I don’t think that our investigation established she was actually particularly sophisticated with respect to classified information and the levels and treatment.””

She’s not sophisticated enough to understand what high school grads understand when they get TS/SCI clearances? Well, fortunately it’s not a matter of sophistication. Unless First Ladies get security clearances, and if they do somebody shoot me now, Hillary Clinton got her first clearance when she was the junior Senator from NY and on the Senate Armed Services Committed. She would have gotten an in-brief when she was read in and she would have received annual refresher training in exactly what Comey said poor unsophisticad Arkansas hick via Wellesley college and Yale law supposedly just couldn’t get. But unlucky for her she would have signed documents under penalty of perjury and threat of prosecution saying she did understand, poor dear. Then she would have been read out. More papers to sign under the same conditions. There would have been NDAs at both ends. And, here was the problem Comey tried to explain away when he had to rewrite the statute to say it required intent, Hillary Clinton signed NDA saying she could be prosecuted both for unauthorized disclosure and negligent mishandling of classified material.

Thus we have the reason for Comey’s obstinate refusal to acknowledge that Congress meant what it said when it wroted 18 U.S.C.793(f) which makes gross negligence resulting in loss of national defense information (note, no classified material required) a criminal offense. He refused to acknowledge that would even be constitutional if Congress did mean that, and even if the statute was valid blah, blah, blah.

Those NDAs are enforceable.

Then Clinton would have started the some process over when she went to DoS. It would be interesting to see if she actually did have the annual refresher training or if she abused her authority as Secretary of State and refused it. Not as if that would help her in a court of law. Willful dereliction of duty is an aggravating factor in these cases.

Unless the Obama administration succeeds in destroying it there will be a paper trail establishing that Hillary Clinton knew and acknowledged she understood classification markings, classification levels, and handling, use, storage, and destruction requirements for each. No need to prove “sophistication.”

If this ever saw the inside of a court room, assuming the prosecutor wasn’t from a DoJ intent on throwing the case, all the prosecutor would have to do is present all that paperwork and Clinton could play as dumb as she likes. It wouldn’t work. It never does.

It’s more like enforcing a contract. Without that contract, that endless stream of agreeing to never disclose the information without authorization and never negligently mishandle the information, no one not even a Clinton, gets a TS/SCI clearance.

And all Comey was saying when he was sputtering on about some supposed inadequacy of the gross negligence standard during his testimony was that he simply wasn’t going to enforce this contract.

Yes, the fix was in. It was in a long time ago. But the stupid party, the GOP made it easy for the Obama administration. Jason Chaffetz, for instance, was constantly praising Comey’s integrity. He said on Fox’s “Outnumbered” last month that if James Comey recommended no prosecution the Republicans would probably accept it.

Thus identifying who Obama needed to have lie to them.

But none of this was supposed to work this way. The FBI director is just supposed to provide the results of his investigation to the prosecutors and they’re supposed to make all the decisions that Comey had gone on TV to announce he had made. Which is not at all within the scope of his authority.

The meeting on the tarmac was just the cherry on top of what’s been in the works for months. No doubt since Billy Jeff and Obama met on the golf course last summer.

If one were to accept the explanation “Hillary=box of rocks,” that should disqualify her from the presidency just as surely as the willful mishandling of national defense information. Whichever way you want to look at the facts of the case, Hillary is not qualified for the office.

1) Who were the legal analysts? What did they base their probabilities (chance) on? If it was the law, I think Hillary would be pretty in orange. If it is her membership in the ruling class, there was no chance of charges.

2) Attack the messenger? I think we are attacking the corrupt Obama administration and the compliant GOPe.

Children should be seen and not heard, Zachriel. This is not about partisan politics you twit. Those FBI agents who are furious may well be Democrats for all you know. I’d be furious if the Bush admin did anything like this. This is about national security.

“I have been advised that the unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of classified information by me could cause damage or irreparable injury to the United States or could be used to advantage by a foreign nation.”

Until last week if anyone had caused damage or irreparable injury to the United States through negligence that was a crime. But FBI Director James Comey has, with Obama’s and Lynch’s approval downgraded causing damage and irreparable harm to the United States through negligence to an administrative infraction punishable by sanctions ranging from reprimand to termination.

This is all pretty effin’ disgusting. All to save one useless, vile woman’s career.

To investigate this massive breech more people were involved than just those FBI agents Comey silenced. All those messages, the FBI agents wouldn’t know what they were looking at without outside help. It had to be a massive effort. I think a lot of people may have been caught on the back because they expected this to go to DoJ and Lynch to play the role of Judas Iscariot and betray our national security. They didn’t expect Comey to do it, and so soon after interviewing Clinton (the fact it took him less than two days to hold the press conference also shows the fix was in).

I suppose to avoid the obvious fact that HIllary Clinton clearly committed several felonies but was allowed to walk away Scot free by her co-religionists in the Obama administration you must cling to some pretty flimsy straws. Even when those straws when examined actually underscore just how politicized this Potemkin show-investigation has been.

It’s not the FBI Director’s role to determine whether a prosecution is or is not warranted. The FBI Director’s role is to act as the head of investigative bureau. He’s not a DoJ prosecutor. As FBI Director it isn’t his call to make.

The fact that the FBI Director did make such a call, that “no reasonable prosecutor” would try to make the case, is prima facie evidence that the system was rigged from the start. It’s unnecessary to even examine the merits of Comey’s argument at this point. That’s losing sight of the forest for the trees. All you need to do is take a step back and ask, “Who is making this prosecutorial decision?” The answer comes back, “Not anyone who would have the responsibility for deciding whether or not to prosecute the case, as that is the job of the career prosecutors at DoJ.”

The mere fact the FBI Director is lecturing us on this point demonstrates the rot. Any one of the janitors at FBI headquarters has as much authority to make this call as James Comey.

Comey’s testimony further undermines the case that this was in any way a legitimate investigation. Under pressure of questioning Comey kept going back to what his focus was on. Just the classified emails. It was clear that he considered any leads that developed that lead away from that relative handful of emails, he ignored. This is not how you conduct a serious investigation. In the course of a serious investigation you follow the evidence where ever it leads. It could lead to evidence of additional criminal activity, which no serious investigator would ignore. Comey’s testimony, whether he realized it or not (and it appeared to me he did not) demonstrated that he was not interested in finding any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Clinton. That’s probably because he’s not an investigator. I’m sure he thought his emphasis on keeping his focus, on keeping boresighted on just what he thought was the central issue, made him appear professional. Quite the opposite. He was describing himself as a horse wearing blinders so he wouldn’t allow himself to see what was just off to the side.

This is probably one of he main reasons why those FBI agents had to be muzzled (that and there was no unanimous agreement with Comey). They’re no doubt livid that they weren’t allowed to follow the evidence where it lead. Instead of being forced to confine themselves to Comey’s narrow focus.

So try to be precise, Zachriel, as you cling to your logical fallacy, your appeal to authority, as if it were a legitimate form of argumentation. One guy at the FBI, James Comey, who exceeded the scope of his authority and made a call he had no right to make said this case didn’t warrant prosecution. And so did a gaggle of media darlings you call legal experts.

I’ll stick to the plain language of the statute, the facts, and the case law.

Arminius: So try to be precise, Zachriel, as you cling to your logical fallacy, your appeal to authority

We’ve responded substantively, but keep in mind that you’re not merely claiming that top career FBI investigators, along with many legal experts, were wrong, but that the recommendation was preposterous and that the only explanation must be that there was a conspiracy of vast proportions. Pretty typical reaction for the right-wing echochamber.

Arminius: I suppose to avoid the obvious fact that HIllary Clinton clearly committed several felonies but was allowed to walk away Scot free by her co-religionists in the Obama administration you must cling to some pretty flimsy straws.

Sure, because a closely coordinated conspiracy of top career FBI investigators, along with legal experts who stated well before the decision was made that there would likely be no indictment ensuing, is more likely than you just got it wrong.

I don’t know about that. Comey seems to have pissed a lot of FBI agents off who know Hillary Clinton more than deserved to be prosecuted. True, they know this DoJ would never prosecute her. But it should be the AG who should be made to look like the partisan political whore. Instead James Comey took on the role, and by extension made the FBI look like a bunch of partisan political whores.

The Director of the FBI isn’t a career agent but an appointee from outside. I gather, though, they don’t like it when the outsider comes in and defecates on their reputation. Which is what Comey has done, and pissing off a lot of agents.

It’s time for congress to subpoena the FBI agents who are angry about letting guilty Hillary the Betrayer break the law and go free. A subpoena overrides an NDA and it’s illegal to punish a government employee for their testimony before congress.